Note 12 — Chapter V · The Grateful Dead and The Ransomed Woman.

In these tales the theme of The Grateful Dead is somewhat abbreviated for the sake of the romantic features of the secondary motive. In both, the agreement with the ghost and every trace of a division have disappeared, though they differ in the details of the treachery by which the lovers are separated. In the former12 much is made of the manner by which the hero gets a favourable reception at the court of the princess’s father, while in the latter this is suppressed. Recognition by some such means, it will appear, is an important feature of the majority of the variants in this section. It must be remembered, of course, that Spanish is a semi-literary version, even though popular in origin.